Category: Tony Blair

UK phone hacking arrests include Mr and Mrs Brooks

13/03/2012

The UK phone hacking scandal continues to plague the government. Today six people have been arrested as part of the police investigation Operation Weeting. Amongst those arrested was Rebekah Brooks and her husband Charlie. This arrest will embarrass UK PM David Cameron. That is it should do.

Mrs Brooks and her husband have links to Mr Cameron. Charlie was at Public School Eton, that home of so many powerful UK people, with David Cameron. Mrs Brooks however also had a too friendly relationship with David Cameron. She did with former UK PM Tony Blair too. It is fair to say that she had reached a powerful position in Rupert Murdoch's UK arm of his business. How is not clear.

In 2003 Mrs Brooks "let the cat out the bag" somewhat when she went on record as saying that UK police had been paid for information. Sat by her side Andy Coulson quickly tried to backtrack and operate a damage limitations exercise. There was however no getting away from what she had said.

Mr Coulson went on to be employed as David Cameron's Communication chief early in Cameron's premiership. Cameron promised that if wrong doing was uncovered he, that is David Cameron, would be held accountable but to date he has not. It seems that David Cameron has been able to sail close to the wind with his Murdoch buddies and remain unscathed, Whether he can continue to do so is anyone's guess. IMHO it is getting to the stage when any other politician would have to be seriously considering resigning from the role of UK PM.

Read more on Today's arrests at Sky News

2 Comments

UK Whitehall overspending cuts cost more than they save

07/03/2012

0 Comments

Those hallowed halls of the British UK Parliament are costly. When the credit crunch began to bite the last Labour government decided to try and minimise such costs. It seems that in doing so more was spent than saved. How on earth can this be so?

Today the UK National Audit Office (NAO) has revealed the figures.The planned improvements were to include structures for pooled resources. These usually make much more sense. However it seems that the plans fell at the first hurdle. Part of the problem seems to have been in the management structure. With no clear roles defined it would seem that it was a case of every man or woman for themselves.

As the BBC have reported, "The changes date back to 2004, when Tony Blair's Labour government promised to set up cost-saving centres to save £159m by sharing "back-office" functions such as information technology, personnel and procurement between departments". Sounds good on paper and in theory so what has gone wrong?

Well according to NAO the initial start-up costs had been put at £900m but, by 2011, these had increased to £1.4bn. WHAT! It is worth mentioning that the current UK coalition government took up office in 2010. Obviously instead of saving money the British taxpayer was once again out of pocket.Comparisons to such proposed changes show that in those companies cost saving are made within a few short years. You can read a full report here.The report of this dreadful waste of money make this blogger think about several pertinent considerations such as:

If successive UK governments are unable to resolve their own budget inefficiencies how on earth can they be expected to solve the nation's financial woes?
Have some of the problems occurred because different political parties will not work together for a common end.
The Coalition has been in power for Two years now and so they can hardly blame today's news on the previous government.

In March 2011 the government said enough is enough. It announced tough measures for Whithall departments that continued to overspend. What has happened to that is unknown. It has not had any impact it seems. If ineffective systems have been purchased and put into place it shows bad management. That said are any of then fit to run the country? Doubtful.

Add Comment

Margaret Thatchers £500,000 expenses

28/10/2011

3 Comments

Blair, Thatcher, Heath, The Queen, Callaghan and Major

In the last day or so the UK has been receiving one story after another about greed. First the FTSE bosses awarding themselves huge pay rises and now former UK Prime Ministers claiming massive amounts of money as expenses or allowances

Apparently this feature of former PMs being able to claim expenses was instigated by Tory PM John Major in 1991, and he was one of the people to benefit from it. It is a taxpayer funded allowance for former Prime Ministers. Of course since its creation it has involved those of other political persuasions, namely Tony Blair, but it is worth noting that Maggie Thatcher has claimed the most cash, so far. Funny when you consider her husband was a millionaire in his own right.

So let's start with former PM Mrs Margaret Thatcher. She claimed half a million pounds from the taxpayer-funded allowance. Remember it is a taxpayer funded allowance. It is also called the Public Duties Cost Allowance.

Over the last 5 years a list of former PMs who have claimed £1.7m. shows that Maggie heads the list with her £500,000 allowance.

The figures have been revealed after a parliamentary request by a Conservative MP. They show Mrs Thatcher as having received £535,000 since 2006, John Major, as receiving £490,000 and Tony Blair as receiving £273,000, since he was ousted from power in 2007. This means that Blair received £169,076 in 2008-9, which was apparently more than his salary when he was in office.

Opinion: A disgrace, what more can I say? Stop it NOW

3 Comments

Only in the UK

Yorkshire woman Eileen Kersey is the creator, editor and writer of TEK staff blogs. Creator of both TEKJournalismUK and WhereButTheUK she has finally come out of the 'writing closet'. Under the pen name of Ethel Smith she has written online, in varying degrees, for around six years.